17 different shows from the summer ‘09 anime season, analyzed and ranked from the bottom up.

Disclaimer: These rankings are purely a reflection of our own opinions and tastes, which are admittedly rather different from your average anime fan. Just because we don’t like a particular show doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. Your mileage may vary, etc etc. However, if you do have a different opinion about a show, by all means post a comment so that people reading have more than one opinion to go by.

Summer often gets a bad rap as the “filler” season in between the generally much more packed spring and fall anime seasons. This season, however, summer boasts an excellent crop of new shows for fans of all different genres. Although I’m ranking these shows numerically according to my favorites, almost all of them are enjoyable in at least some respects.

Almost all. Read the rest of this entry »

For a long time now I’ve been dissatisfied with my  current blogroll, and indeed I’ve never been particularly keen on the concept for traditional blogrolls to begin with. The standard “list of links on the sidebar” doesn’t give much useful information, hardly ever generates any clicks, and also damages your Google pagerank.

Thus, I’m very pleased to present a much more detailed blogroll listing that I feel properly gives credit to the sites that I enjoy the most and which recommend to you, my readers, as being Worth Your Time. This page will be added onto my top menu shortly, so you can always refer back to it if you’re bored and want a good anime blog recommendation.

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The first three blogs in this list, by the way, are my “holy trinity of anime blogging”, writers who I admire and who’s works I read without fail, regardless of subject matter. These guys don’t just write generic episode summaries. They really engage with the work on a creative and intellectual level that gives credit to the under-appreciated depth of animated works, and helps me to better appreciate the artistry of this genre.

If these guys recommend it, it’s probably worth checking out. Read the rest of this entry »

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” – Seneca the Younger

It’s no mistake that Yuuki’s name means “courage” (勇気). Throughout the story of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Yuuki more than anyone else has been the one who held on to hope, who had courage in the bleakest of circumstances.

And now, even in death, Yuuki leaves behind his namesake. Read the rest of this entry »

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and although this is most assuredly due to my laziness, it’s not entirely accurate to say that I’ve been doing nothing but loafing about drinking shochu and watching anime during the punishing summer months here in Japan. Not entirely accurate.

Anyway, what I’m planning to do is share some of my more interesting adventures during my time here. I’ll have leave the serious discussion on the finer points of Japan’s rich cultural heritage to 0rion; my tales will serve as more of a series of facepalm inducing incidents.

So I met Yotsuba the other day, as in IRL.

I was sitting in the cafe area at the local DOMY supermarket, minding my own business, enjoying some of their scrumptious yet very reasonably priced salmon nigirizushi. In the background I could hear the sound of a kid running about shouting something about “okashi” (candy).

As the sounds drew closer, it became apparent that the voice belonged to a small child approximately five years of age. As she entered into the cafe area, which I need to stress is just a couple of tables and chairs seated next to some vending machines within the store, her eyes met with a horrible sight. Namely, my face. Read the rest of this entry »

This article is probably the best and most accurate explanation of Touhou I have ever seen, highlighting both the fact that the games are incredibly punishing and also highly bizarre. Not that that should come as a surprise, considering they were made in Japan, the product of what the article refers to as “a 110 lb Alcoholic Game Designer”. Read the rest of this entry »

“Get some!”

I’m sure this is exactly how terrorists behave in real life.

Somehow I feel like this should be “the rejected Nintendo Wii commercial”. Fun for the whole family… if your family happens to consist of crazy siscon maniacs and masochist henchmen. Maybe cut to Liang Qi playing Mario Party 8, you know. At least that would explain why she seems so furious.

But man, if nothing else CANAAN is certainly generating lots of fodder for the internet meme-factories to work with. Between this and “LOVE AND PEACE”, CANAAN is a definite leader when it comes to legendary Engrish. Read the rest of this entry »

I mean seriously. Look at her blatantly wallhacking, shooting people right through the walls.

And her movements? Pretty obvious speedhacks going there. Possibly even a bunny hopping script.

And I don’t care what game you’re playing, anyone who spins in circles while shooting everybody within 100 yards is an aimbotter. That’s just common knowledge. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m mildly surprised that CANAAN seems to have received a fairly mixed reception so far. It’s one of my favorite shows this season, not only for its gorgeous art and memorable characters, but also because of the strong emphasis on symbolism and metaphor used to portray the deeper elements of the story.

That said, CANAAN is not without its flaws, but I view as a similar kind of story to Darker than Black. It’s not necessarily about the world and the larger plot. It’s not about realism. It’s about creating an environment to develop interesting characters and to explore their personalities, motivations, and relationships.

I’ve often said that I hate being mollycoddled by a story. There are entirely too many writers that feel it necessary to beat you over the head with the script rather than allow you to engage with it at your own pace. I much prefer a story that leaves itself somewhat mysterious, that requires the viewer or reader to dig a little below the surface.

CANAAN certainly provides that in spades. While a lot of it may not have any particularly deep meaning, it’s pretty clear that the story is using several key metaphors to portray the relationships between the characters and to foreshadow elements of the overarching plot. Read the rest of this entry »

Korosu!

Poor Lawrence Craft may be a genius at business, but he sure is dense when it comes to other matters.

I haven’t kept up with the Spice and Wolf manga or light novels much since the first season of the anime aired. Fortunately, the first anime season was brilliant and captured most of what I liked about the series, and the second is now following in its footsteps. I had hoped to blog this second season from the beginning, but due to lack of time I’m only just now starting to post about it.

This second season, now animated by Brain’s Base (although still with a lot of the original staff)  and with a more generous budget, has noticeably better quality. The character animation especially is more frequently on model than in the last season, and the animation seems a bit more fluid.

For reference, Brain’s Base also has to its credit several other visually excellent projects, including Kamichu, Baccano, and Kurenai. It should come as no surprise that their work here is just as excellent. Read the rest of this entry »

Saki’s epic win over Koromo in episode 19 was unquestionably amazing, with lots of lens flare, typhoons back and forth across the mahjong table, fiery Terminator eyeball glare, and LOL MAHJONG IS FUN LOL. It was also completely ridiculous and unrealistic (surprise!).

Obviously that’s par for the course with this series, when we’ve just seen a hanchan played that had multiple haitei raoyue (bottom of the ocean) and rinshan kaihou (drawing your winning tile from the dead wall after a kan) declarations made. I was curious, though, just how unlikely this last game really was.

Warning – lots of mahjong diagrams and math ahead. Read on if you have questions about what exactly happened in that last round of Saki 19, or if you’re curious about just how incredibly unlikely Saki’s win really was. If you don’t care about any of that, go ahead and just go straight to the end for the fanservice pictures.

OK, so first let’s consider Saki’s hand on the final turn of the game, and the sequence of events that leads up to her absolutely ridiculous win over Koromo. You can skip past this and right to the math if you already understand the details of what happened in that last game. This is Saki’s hand on the final turn, right before Koromo discarded:

So she’s in tenpai (needs only one tile to win) for a chinitsu hand (all one-suit), and she’s waiting on either a 1-pin or 4-pin. Basically, if she gets 4-pin she can win like this: Read the rest of this entry »